Karen, the most unbelievable thing happened as I was reading your comment. FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER my dd calmly told me that she needed to poop in the potty and she did! She has had bm’s in the potty before but only because I saw the signs early enough, so this is a BIG DEAL! This is about 2 and a half months since we started the 3 Day method.It has been a more difficult road than I expected but things are finally starting to click.

I agree with you that the book has a lot of helpful suggestions. It helped me get psyched up for potty training, which had previously really intimidated me. After I didn’t get the described results I would have been very discouraged had it not been for the more “realistic” advice I got from other moms. (Each kid is different, don’t set expectations too high, and to be patient.). I’m glad it is paying off as #2 is due in a few months. Hang in there!

Katie is now 99% daytime trained. She overcame her fear of pooping in the potty in one day and has never looked back. Even better, she tells me when she needs to go. No more “tell me if you need to go to the potty, ok?” three-thousand times a day. She still wets in her trainers at night but at this point, I consider the whole thing a success.

We will be welcoming Babypotamus in just a few short months and I am so grateful to have cleared this milestone. It was much more painless than I had imagined an I am not at all dreading the process with #2. Many, many thanks to all of you that poured in with advice and encouragement when we hit a roadblock. If you are new to potty training and want some great advice, read the comments on Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 and the One Month Update!

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14 Responses to 3 Day Potty Training: Final Update

on day 4 he finally started telling us on his own “potty time!!”
we are still praising him for dry pants and reminding him to tell us when it’s potty time. for some reason saying the phrase “potty time” worked and clicked with him
he still just wears a t-shirt and underwear during the day. no pants or shorts.

Most importantly, I prayed over the whole experience before we began. I think committing every part of parenting to the Lord, even potty training, brings peace, knowing it’s in His hands.

the first part of my post:
YAY for Miss Katie! Knowing that you were successful with this method really helped gave me the courage to try it as well. I don’t know why, but I was really dreading this process.
A few things that worked for us:

I cleared my schedule for 3 days and began on a Thursday when Chad’s long weekend off work began. Working as a team was delightful and Curt loved the attention of both parents. When one of us was discouraged, the other one would jump in and take over. So definitely do it on a long weekend when hubby is there. I did not leave the house for the first 2 days.
we made sure to use the same wording. sometimes he responded well to me, other times with Chad.
we never left his side. the accidents at the beginning made us realize this was imperative as he was training us with his signals.
I learned his signals (standing on tippy toes, wiggling, doing a little dance, trying to hide from me)
Bought his big boy underwear with him. he was delighted.
I taught him the wet/dry concept over and over and let him feel them when they were wet. he like the train designs on his underwear and didnt want to get the train wet!
we made up a silly potty dance.

told him a million times, about every 5 mintues, “tell mama when you need to go potty” “is it potty time?” most of the time he ignored me, but every now and then, he would nod and say” ok” and other times he’d say “it’s potty time” and he’ll run to the bathroom.

we let him see us going potty alot.

one time he was sitting in my lap and all of a sudden we were both soaked. i immediatly jumped up and said “potty time” and ran him to the bathroom and sat him down to finish. I let him feel the wet pants everytime he did it and taught the “are the wet or dry” concept over and over
praised him constanly throughout the day when his pants were dry
we would always make a huge deal when successful. lots of praise and hugs and a treat.
mix up the treats/rewards…he’s so in tune with food that he loves getting a reward.
We did get him up in the middle of the night to make him go, usually after I fed the baby around 3:30am (so I was up anyway)
on day 3, when I got him up, he wouldnt go, so I put him back to bed and he woke up dry.
he’s been waking up a little earlier, I think becuase he needs to go potty, so that’s the first thing we do each morning.
if you have another little one, using a Moby wrap or some sort of baby carrier is a lifesaver. that really helped me when caring for my six month old baby and helping Curt go.
again, Chad’s involvement has helped a ton and that’s made a huge difference. I really believe that’s why it clicked and worked so well for him.
on day five we thought it was smooth sailing because he hadn’t wet underwear in two days! then we left him alone for a second and he pooped in his pants, ugh! but he’s getting there and I’m a real believer in this method.

I would rather have a few days/weeks of craziness and messes vs. dragging it out for months with pull ups, etc.
the only time he’s worn a pull-up was when we attended a wedding on day 3.
his cute chubby bottom was waay too big for the little potty seats, so I tried placing a stool under our regular adult ones and it was the perfect fit for him. he holds onto the sides of the seat, with his feet planted on the stool.
on day 4 Chad taught him how to stand up and pee. ohh, he was delighted.
the first time he pooped in the potty, I showed it to him and said, “look Curt, thats your poo poos! yaayyyy!” he stared at it in astonishment with big round eyes and exclaimed”ooo, WORMS!!” I stifled my urge to laugh and said “poo poos!” he replied “poo poo worms!” (he still thinks they are worms and acts like it’s cool that they come out of him, lol)

Poo poo worms! That is hilarious, Esther. I wonder if Daniel and I had attempted potty training together if it would have clicked earlier for Katie. It is hard for one individual to maintain focus and look for signals all the time. I think I will suggest this to other parents that attempt this method. Congrats on your success with Curt! People say boys are harder to train so I’m sure your experience will give lots of mommy’s courage!

Well my son is getting there. He still has his accidents, and he still has days that he doens’t really care about going. But I will not force my son. And as much as my family thinks that he should already be trained, I am okay with the fact that he is not yet trained.

Congrats on Katie being 99% trained! That is a huge success!

And you look beautiful by the way!
.-= Linda´s last blog ..Memorial Day =-.

I just had to write to you (and others who are reading) because I am on day 4 of the LJ plan and was so upset that he didn’t seem like he was where he should be. I felt like I was a failure and that I had done everything wrong. (I felt this many times during the 3 days, a bit of crying too, but always had the reassurance that it would click by the third day) I re-read the manual, but couldn’t figure out what I could have done differently. This is when I noticed that she mentioned that if it hadn’t clicked by day 3, you might need to take another day off work. I went to her website and there is an actual sentence that says “Speaking honestly, there are parents who take longer than 3 days to potty train their child with my method, but they still like the method”. So I was kind of annoyed and decided to see if there was actual unbiased info from people who had tried it. I am so thankful for your blog. It helped me remember to laugh and that almost everything about raising children is frustrating and funny at times. Also, that I don’t have to be perfect, he will eventually get it. And I think my son can tell that my attitude has changed because he is doing much better in the past hour. I think you have had your second baby by now, hope that is going well! I am 6 months pregnant. I think that might have been a factor in the crying as well

Leah – I am so glad you found my post! Potty training is challenging but I promise it is WORTH IT ALL to get it done before baby arrives. We just welcomed our son this month and I can’t imagine trying to potty train in the middle of all the craziness going on in my house.

I did this with my first little girl at 25 months and she was totally potty trained in 3 days (even though we had an epic fail before we tried this method -we 1st tried the potty training in a day method and it was miserable for both of us). We actually had to go on a little trip on the day after this method and it took us about an hour. I was biting my nails that she was going to pee in the car, but she didn’t. Then we were swimming and she said, “mommy, I have to go potty,” even when we were in the pool…couldn’t believe it! All that to say, that it worked for us. I am about to start it again with my 2nd little one (at 22 months like she suggests)…we’ll see. : ) I am hoping it goes just as well.

Since my daughter was born a little over a year after your son you are probably or have potty trained him now. We just finished our first full day. Last night she had 2 pees in the potty and I was encouraged to start. Today though I only got a few drops in the potty and she had 8 accidents. Still not terrible. I don’t know that I expect her to wake up in the night though. She’s a very good sleeper and sleeps about 14 hours right now without a midafternoon nap. I have training pants too that I had intended to start with. I think those are what you said you decided to use at night? The little cotton ones that just have a thicker crotch. I think I might be better off using those than doing pull ups at night. I am sticking with this and know she can be day trained if I give her more time. Hopefully by the end of the week she will at least be day trained mostly. She has stopped asking for diapers at least. Any thoughts?